82 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
WHALE SHARK 
Note the conspicuous spots with which the body 
is covered. 
LEOPARD AND WHALE SHARRa 
Leopard shark seizing fin of whale shark while the 
latter was' in tow. 
THE TAKING OF A WHALE SHARK 
(.Uliineodon typus ) IN SOUTHERN 
FLORIDA 
By Louis L. Mowbray 
Photographs by D. L. Williams 
HILE Captain Newton Knowles of the 
Edithia was conducting a fishing party 
for Mr. Claude Nolan of Jacksonville, in 
Florida waters, they sighted on the morning of 
June 9, 1923, the fin of a large shark. On ap¬ 
proaching, they found it was a whale shark 
that had evidently wandered or had been carried 
bv the current into shallow water. I he fish 
./as circling within the lagoon which at no place 
exceeded twenty feet in depth and is surrounded 
on three sides by mud 
Hats. 
Captain Knowles har¬ 
pooned the fish about 
11 :00 A. M. After sev¬ 
eral hours’ fight and 
sixty rifle shots had been 
fired into the monster, 
many of which were shot 
into the base of the tail, 
the big fish became 
somewhat subdued. A 
tow line was secured to 
the tail and the fish was 
towed to Long Key 
dock. It took the three 
motor boats twelve hours 
to make the sixteen 
miles. 
The writer arrived at Long Key on the 
morning of the 10th and found the shark still 
alive. Mr. Nolan on hearing of my desire to 
secure the specimen for the American Museum 
of Natural History, at once became greatly in¬ 
terested and presented it. I immediately made 
a description of the living specimen and ar¬ 
ranged to have the shark towed to Key West, 
where it could he docked and handled to greater 
advantage by the preparator, Mr. Limekiller, 
who was sent down by the Museum. 
The tugboat Liberty of Key West made a 
little more than three miles an hour towing the 
big fish until the Coast Guard cutter Cossack, 
in charge of Lieut. Brown, arrived. Just at 
that time we were busily enaged in fighting off 
the leopard sharks by 
pounding them with 
oars and boat hooks. 
These sharks had been 
attracted in large num¬ 
bers by the smell of 
blood and oil, some of 
them being of great size, 
apparently exceeding 
fifteen feet in length 
and showing the great¬ 
est ferocity, sliding up 
on the carcass for four 
or more feet, trying to 
bite the portion that 
was above water. After 
making a request for 
assistance, Lieut. Brown 
a line and 
